The chairman of an expert panel assembled to help the Government in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster had previously advised against the retrospective fitting of sprinklers in high-rise buildings.

An independent panel will convene to suggest immediate safety action in the wake of the inferno which claimed the lives of at least 79 people earlier this month.

It will be chaired by former London fire commissioner Sir Ken Knight, who compiled a report on the Lakanal House fire in Camberwell which killed three women and three children in 2009.

In his report to the Department for Communities and Local Government, he wrote: ‘It is not considered as practical or economically viable to make a requirement for the retrospective fitting of fire suppression systems to all current high-rise residential buildings.

Cladding is being removed from many buildings across the country (Picture: PA)

‘However it is a matter for individual housing owners and landlords to decide if automatic fire suppression is required as part of their fire safety strategy based on their fire risk assessment.’

Sprinklers, as well as cladding, are expected to be among the details analysed by a public inquiry into the fire.

It comes as:

A second tranche of inquests into people who perished in the north Kensington tower tragedy are expected to open today at Westminster Coroner’s Court.

Cabinet has been told 95 samples of cladding from tower blocks in 32 English local authority areas have failed fire safety tests.

Nine hospital trusts have been identified as using cladding that is similar to that involved in the Grenfell Tower fire.

The Care Quality Commission has contacted more than 17,000 care homes, hospices and private hospitals to tell them to check fire safety procedures.

An 11-storey building in Wuppertal, west Germany, was evacuated over concerns about exterior insulation similar to that used at Grenfell.

More than £32,000 was raised in a charity auction which will see a character in a new Philip Pullman book named after a teenager feared dead in the fire.

Prime Minister Theresa May has called for a ‘major national investigation’ into the decades-long use of potentially flammable cladding on high-rise towers across the country in the wake of the fire.

Mrs May said ‘something has clearly gone wrong’ with the use of potentially flammable cladding on high-rise towers across the country.

People were ordered to leave Dorney Tower on the Chalcots Estate in north London (Picture: Getty)

‘What we have seen from the investigations that have taken place of cladding material in tower blocks across the country is that 100 per cent of these materials being combustible,’ the Prime Minister said.

‘Something clearly has gone wrong over a number of years and we need to find out what, why and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

The latest tally of fire safety checks was presented to the Cabinet by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid – but a fire safety expert raised doubts over the combustibility tests being carried out on cladding samples by the Building Research Establishment (BRE).

David Metcalfe, head of the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology, a body which works with hundreds of contractors, architects and manufacturers, claimed samples are being tested ‘severely’ in a way which may be inflating the scale of the crisis.

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The appointment of an expert panel was announced on Tuesday and will ‘advise on any immediate measures that can be put in place to make buildings safe’.

It will be made up of building and fire safety experts, including the chief executive of the Building Research Establishment, Peter Bonfield, chairman of the National Fire Chiefs Council, Roy Wilsher, and president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Amanda Clack

They are due to have their first meeting during the course of this week.

Announcing the appointment of the expert panel, Mr Javid said: ‘It’s absolutely right that there will be an independent public inquiry to get to the truth about what happened and who was responsible for the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

‘However, I want to know if there are measures we can put in place now to keep people safe and I want them done immediately. I want the public to be confident everything possible is being done.’